30 LGBT Artists You Should Know (SLIDESHOW)

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LGBT artists have continually challenged mainstream understandings of gender and sexuality, and the impact of this on our society is immeasurable. Like artists of the 1980s who worked tirelessly to bring attention to HIV/AIDS in America, artists today maintain their roles as leading figures striving for change and cultural awareness.

As Pride Month comes to a close, we would like to showcase a number of LGBT artists who have influenced the progress of art and society throughout the past hundred years or so. While this list is in no way comprehensive, we hope to highlight some of the many creative individuals who as members of the LGBT community have put their unique stamp on art history.

Check out the list below of amazing LGBT artists who have irrevocably changed the art world and beyond with their work. You can help us to increase this list by adding your favorite LGBT artists to the comments section below. To see more, we ran a tribute to "Artists Who Passed Away From AIDS" yesterday. Spoiler alert: It's a real bummer.

At the age of 26, <a href="http://baltrop.org/" target="_hplink">Alvin Baltrop </a> began photographing Manhattan's West Side piers, an area of refuge for queer teenage runaways as well as a stage for the city's underground gay scene. The stark reality conveyed in Baltrop's photographs was not well received by the mainstream art world, and so his work was largely ignored until after his death. But the thousands of images captured by Baltrop between 1975 and 1986 stand as remnants of a New York City community rarely captured before or after.
IMAGE: Alvin Baltrop, Navy Sailors, 1969--72, Gelatin-silver print (2011), 8.5 x 12.75 inches. Courtesy of The Alvin Baltrop Trust and Third Streaming (NY).